Halloween 2013 - The Dockhand's Tale
Michael Durant
THE DOCKHAND’S TALE
by
Michael Durant
Doctor Eisenhardt had been keeping up a steady stream of mental curses throughout the day, working through a thorough understanding of both English and French, along with a smattering of glottal German, and it was only now petering out. He stood in front of his car softly repeated fuck to himself in all its variations.
He pulled the black envelope from his overcoat and read it again. The meeting was at Horace’s.
~~
It’s always a cold day in hell here, Eisenhardt thought, standing outside the familiar apartment. He opened the door to find three members of the club waiting for him. The cocytal coldness of the room sprang at him in the doorway. He closed the door behind him and kept his overcoat. There was poor Smart huddled in her coat and scarf. She waved a mittened hand at Eisenhardt. The smoking corner, a niche with a vent in the ceiling, was occupied by a dark-haired man. Eisenhardt gathered it was either Halloway or Burgess. The host, Horace, lay supine on his couch. He wore a red silk smoking jacket and held a glass of amber drink in his hands. Though Horace was pale and gaunt, the chill of his apartment didn’t affect him in the least. His sharp eyes twinkled and his blue lips moved fast as he spoke sweet nothings to Smart.
The faux-gaslamps with yellow-tinted bulbs cast a sick pallor over the club. There was a leather armchair next to Horace, but Eisenhardt wasn’t ready for that yet. He moved to the bar to fortify himself.
“Evenin, Doc,” said Matthews. Horace’s footman wore a comfortable woolen vest over a white dress shirt and black trousers. Underneath, Eisenhardt suspected the man wore longjohns.
“Bonsoir, Monsieur Matthews,” Eisenhardt said. “How is the family?”
“Ronald’s a monster and my wife’s lover is spending my money,” Matthews said with a smile. “And you’re not listening to a word I say.”
Matthews served Eisenhardt his usual, a whiskey neat. Eisenhardt placed a dollar on the table and left the footman with neither word nor thought. On his way to the armchair near Horace, Eisenhardt slugged back a mouthful of the whiskey. Fire roared in his digestive tract, warming him from the inside.
“Eisenhardt,” called Horace. “I am so pleased you could make it tonight! Won’t you have a seat?”
Eisenhardt took the armchair. “Who do we have tonight?”
“I believe Halloway will be entertaining tonight when he arrives.”
The other man, Burgess, sat down next to Smart, and Smart smiled at Eisenhardt. “He always brings the best ones,” she said.
Eisenhardt had brought Smart to the club eighteen months ago, and had been regretting it for the last six. He flashed her a polite smile, and felt pinpricks of nervousness dot his brow. Horace stood. “Drinks?” he asked.
Smart raised her hand, and offered her empty glass to the host. Horace glided over to Matthews to refill his brandy and Smart’s dry sherry.
“Anyone else tired of these meetings?” Eisenhardt said sotto voce.
“I don’t know how you mean,” said Smart. She was frowning.
“Dissension in the ranks, old boy?” Burgess said.
“It’s bloody cold,” Eisenhardt said. He smiled. “Was only a joke.”
“Horace needs it cold here. For his condition.” Smart again, fawning over the man halfway across the room.
“I have never heard of a condition quite like it,” Eisenhardt muttered.
Horace turned from the bar with his drinks right as the door opened to admit Halloway and Ballard. The club had reached its quorum. The meeting began.
~~
First they lay out Horace’s blueprints. A star connected seven points along a circle on the large canvas. At each point stood a member of their club. Each member held his or her Icon. Clockwise: Smart, Shackle; Burgess, Anchor; Eisenhardt, Key; Horace, Lock; Matthews, Oar; Ballard, Coins; and Halloway, a vial of salt. Each of the six Icons were etched with runes, strengthening their symbolism in the ritual.
Halloway poured the salt into the heptagon at the center of the circle. Eisenhardt turned to Horace and intoned his lines in the ritual that Horace had drafted and perfected. He held out the key, and Horace said, “The Door is open.”
A mousey, balding fellow, Ballard intoned his lines with gravitas that didn’t match. He cut his palm with a bronze knife and squeezed his blood onto the Coins before placing them in the center with the salt. Matthews, with his Oar, responded as the Ferryman: “The Guide has been paid in blood and gold.”
Halloway intoned the summoner’s lines in the ritual. Matthews responded.
“I shall bring forth the Spirit.”
A new, deeper chill pervaded the dark room. The salts began to swirl and fog emanated from the lines of the circle. Smart and Burgess intoned the ritual of binding the soul to the circle.
“WHAT… DO… YOU… WANT?” shrieked an unearthly wind.
The mist congealed, centering on the salts. Soon the mist was made flesh, a startling pale figure. He was naked, with light hair on his head and darker hair elsewhere. His eyes glowed red in the soft light of the room. Eisenhardt glanced past Burgess at Smart. She was in the throes of ecstasy from the ritual, and her mouth gave a cruel sneer at the dead man’s physique.
Eisenhardt held his ground, avoiding a break in the circle through will alone. How different this succubus from the shy girl he had brought here so long ago!
Halloway cleared his throat. “I have summoned you here, the Shade of Matthew Connor Fitzmichael. Tell us the story of the night you died.”
~~
I’m working the graveyard shift with my friend Roy O’Neill. Peggy’s home with the boy, who the doctor said has influenza.
——We don’t need all that! Smart rattled the chain she held, and the spirit flickered and grew dim.
I want this part clear, witch: I did not die for my greed and gluttony, and I did not die to entertain you. I died trying to scrape together money for my family. You called me forth, and you will bear witness to this.
——Steady there, Smart, said Ballard. Smart’s feral scowl faded to an impassive mask.
This afternoon, the boss, Mark, he comes up to me.
“We’re going to lose some crates tonight,” he says.
“For our friend?” I ask.
“Yeah, usual rates.”
It pours early in the afternoon, but around seven the clouds leave and the new moon refuses to shine. Roy’s taking in a bunch of crates bound for France in the morning. Mark tells the night guys to come in for our shits tomorrow before leaving himself. A fog lurks just off the shore and the docks look freshwet and clean.
I see the freighter on the horizon, and check the crate number that my boss’s friend wants. The ship glides into port, and Roy helps me offload her. Roy finds the crate we’re supposed to lose, and he maneuvers to put it behind some crates in the load going out tomorrow.
I’m acting clever, checking the crates off on the manifest and scratching my head. I check the crates a second time.
“Hey what’re you trying to pull here?” I said.
The sailor, a mean bastard with dark lazy eyes, just glares at me.
“This crate ain’t here.” I act so proud of myself, like I can’t believe they lost the damn thing.
“Then don’t sign for it, asshole,” he says. “It came off the ship, I signed for it when I went into the bay.”
——And then he shot you and you died? Smart was rolling her eyes.
Hey, witch, you don’t like the story, banish me. Release me. Please. I convinced the sailor that the crate had not come off the ship, and that he had been mistaken in his counting.
The ship is left in the first berth, and the sailors file off on shore leave. Roy and I move the crate into the boss’s office where Mark and his friend are waiting.
“Excellent work, Mark,” the friend says. He’s wearing a natty suit and a cigarillo pokes out of his mouth. The stench of cheap tobacco overwhelms the office.
The man in the suit pays us in cash. Mark looks at Roy and nods. Roy goes pale as a ghost. The man in the suit leaves with his contraband booze.
“You got somewhere to be?” Mark asks me.
“Just home sir,” I say.
“Got one more shipment, it’s going out.” He holds out some more cash. “Roy’s done it before.”
I smile, and take the money. The boss looks back and forth between me and Roy, nervous.
“Well, I gotta blow anyways. Past my bedtime and my wife’s got a mouth on her.”
Roy nods without saying a word. We go back to the dock and wait. The boss walks away, towards the city.
“What’s the game, Milton Bradley?” I ask. I’m delirious about my windfall.
Roy just stares at the horizon. Around 11:30 there’s a banging at the fence. Roy refuses to go over, so I do it for him. He’s still just staring in shock at the sea. Don’t know what he’s looking for. The man at the gate is dressed like some pulpster’s idea of a gangster, all long jacket and wide-brimmed hat pulled low to cover his eyes in shadow.
“Where’s Roy?” the thug croaks.
“Keeping an eye on the harbor. What do you want? No more deliveries tonight.”
“I believe there’s… one more.” His voice buzzes in my ear. His face doesn’t move, and I think it’s some sort of mask. “When the pale ship rides into the dock, deliver this message to the captain.”
The guy hands me a sealed envelope with a golden-painted pictogram on it. Not like one of the Egyptian ones… more Oriental, but none I ever seen.
“Alright, mister. I’ll give the captain your message. Now get outta here, we’re closed.”
The man shambles away in a toadlike manner. I look at the envelope again, and this part’s weird—
——Finally! This one’s a snorefest, Halloway.
But the hieroglyphics don’t look the same. Like they moved. Maybe my eye hadn’t seen it all before, but it’s bigger, more intricate. And I see little tendrils of gold paint pulsing out of the sign—
——Thank you, Matthew, but we’ve seen the Yellow Sign before, Halloway said.
Aright, aright. I get it. Moving on. The pale ship shows up on the horizon about midnight. As it pulls in, I notice it’s the biggest ship I ever seen, and it’s painted bone-white. It glides over the water, ghostlike. At first I think it IS a ghost, but it’s as real as I am. Er, as I was. And Roy’s still staring at the sea, but now he’s staring at the pale ship and trembling.
“The chink give you his message?” Roy whispers.
“Didn’t see his eyes, but yeah. I got a message for the captain. That all this is?”
“You’ll see.”
“Dammit you stupid mick. You’re supposed to tell me what’s going on!”
Roy points out to the pale ship. I can see the letters on her hull now. PELAGIC.
“The Pelagic is a fucking ghost ship, man. About three months ago, the boss calls me over and gives me this thing, special assignment, double pay. Man’s willing to do what I want to make this happen, so I make it happen. That toady sack of lard shows up, gives me a message. The ship comes in…”
Roy spasms.
“The ship comes in, and I hand the message to the captain. You wouldn’t believe me if I told you… what was on that ship.”
“Hey man, you OK?”
“’Mfine. There needs to be two of us.”
“Seriously, if you gotta go, then go. I won’t squeal.”
Roy stops trembling. “Yeah, I’ll go. But I warned you.”
“Yeah, you warned me. Now get outta here.”
Roy leaves me. The Pelagic continues to float into the port. It’s this pale alabaster monster with bright orange blisters hanging on the side. Biggest damn thing I ever saw.
It’s so big that it stops short at the tender station, and one of the blisters falls into the water. At that point I realize that they’re dinghies, but like nothing I’ve ever seen.
The podboat comes in and pulls right up to the dock. Out steps this dame wearing next to nothing besides a thin dress that hid her curves. Her face is waxy, like the man in the suit, and doesn’t quite suit her.
“Crap, this again?” She turns to someone in the boat. “If we were in the Interbellum, why the hell would you send me out dressed like this--?”
She turns back to me. “Sorry. I believe you have a message for the captain?”
I hand her the envelope with the Yellow Sign.
“It’s him, alright.” She tears the envelope open and throws the Yellow Sign into the water. “Latitudes, longitudes, dates… corresponding constellation maps…” her mouth forms a delighted O. “Oh, Pharaoh was quite thorough this time.”
——Did she say where they were going? Smart asked.
She doesn’t. She smiles at me, and beckons me into the podboat. “Usually there’s two people,” she coos. “I see the cleanup man went home.”
“The cleanup man, ma’am?”
“Ma’am! Why, I do declare, I love the Interbellum. Such manners.” She steps closer, standing closer than I let any woman that isn’t Patty. Her face writhes, like a worm is traveling underneath it. Her body ripples under the dress that hides her curves. The mask, the dress, they tear and get lost in bubbling, writhing flesh. Barbed tentacles grab me, sink into my skin. I’m screaming, but nobody is there to hear.
The thing in the dress has me in every way. Her body envelopes me, every appendage; invades me, every orifice. Digests me. My body, sucked dry, is left there on the docks. That is the story of the night of my death, Summoner.
——You are dismissed, Spirit.
~~
Halloway cleared his throat, and the spirit faded away like a lost analog signal. He stepped through the circle, and retrieved Mark Connor Fitzmichael’s essential salts. He presented the tube to Horace.
Horace took his accustomed seat, and the small circle of necromancers gathered around him. He turned first to Halloway. “Splendid, simply splendid. Well worth losing our standing wager.”
Halloway smiled small and nodded. Smart cut in. “You mean, he won?”
“Only two months left in the challenge, and Halloway’s submission is the strongest yet. He wins the ten thousand dollar prize for finding a soul snuffed out by the Outer Ones.”
Smart’s eyes went wide. “That’s what the bitch was?” She asked.
“And why were they on a modern-day cruise ship?” Eisenhardt asked. “That’s what troubles me. It’s… random. Doesn’t belong.”
Horace smiled. “I suppose they must have ended up in the Thirties by way of the Bermuda Triangle.”
Smart couldn’t tell if he was serious. “Think they’ll find where they’re going?”
“I hope not, girl. I suppose we’ll find out some day, when the stars are right.”
Ballard gave a start at the turn of phrase. Smart took note. If anyone there had read more dusty tomes than Horace it was Ballard. Horace chuckled to himself. “I move to close this meeting of the Conjuration Club.”
“I thought with the addition of Smart, we were the Conjuration Conglomerate!” Burgess said.
“Get out,” Horace said laughing.
Later, while Horace drew the bath, Smart turned the essential salts of Fitzmichael over in her hands. She uncorked the vial and sniffed in the dead man’s essence like an oenophile examining the aroma of a fine Chablis.
Fitzmichael smelled pretty much the same as Ellen Smart did. There was no mystery to Ellen’s death. Another drunk driving fatality. Murder by negligence. Some invincible god loaded up on Jack Jim or Johnny had rode his almighty ass down the street and struck Ellen down in her prime. There was no essential difference between Ellen and Fitzmichael. Dead was dead.
Eisenhardt had been cute back then, but she saw how he looked at her now. After that night they’d spent together, distilling Ellen’s body down into its core components, and crystalizing all that remained of Ellen into her essential salts. Eisenhardt had inducted her into what he liked to call Thanatophobics Anonymous, and under Horace’s guiding words, she had inducted herself into greater and greater mysteries.
When Smart had banished Ellen’s Spirit from the circle, she had closed a door on a part of herself. A part of herself that would someday die, to be rendered into her essential salts and summoned by thrill-seeking necromancers. Smart recognized that someday, perhaps soon, Eisenhardt would break. And she would render him into his essential salts, for her own use. Soon, everyone she knew would be dead. But not her. Oh no.
She disrobed. “Is the water warm?” she asked.
“It’s at the right temperature.” Horace picked up a bottle of unnatural blue from the tub and measured out two ounces of the azure stuff. He poured it in and stirred the broth with his hand.
He climbed into the tub, looking older than he had when the meeting had started. He shut his eyes at his end of the tub. Smart bent down and kissed the old man’s forehead.
“Are you getting sentimental on me?” he murmured. She detected a smile.
“Non, mon petit ami.”
Smart poured the essential salts into the bath and stirred with her hand. The water was cold like everything in Horace’s life was cold. The salts dissolved into the water, which was tinted blue. Smart climbed into her end of the tub.
She would never die, she decided.